I would like to start our blog post with this very meaningful dish to me – potstickers or also known as pan fried dumplings. Potstickers are either called “煎餃” or “鍋貼” in Chinese. During the Chinese New Year, my grandma will make a huge pot of dumpling filling for us to make dumplings, and usually that is the time for we to catch up with relatives that we only see once a year. One fun fact about dumpling is this: the reason why Chinese love about dumpling and especially during Chinese New Year, is that the dumpling looks like the old gold ingot in China, 元寶. Sometimes, they will even hide one coin in one of the dumplings as a game. And whoever find that coin in their dumpling will have good luck for the rest of the year.
After going to college, I always invite few friends to come over to make dumplings and catch up on those little things in our lives. A dumpling party is the perfect opportunity. Everyone will have a fun time learning how to make it and people can chat during the time. Best of all, the extra dumplings can be frozen until you need it and it’s just as delicious as the freshly made ones!
Today I want to share this recipe passed down from my grandma. This is the special Kang’s dumpling recipe!
Dumpling Ingredients:
- 1 cabbage (about 2.5 lbs)
- 3 tbls of soy sauce
- 1 tbs of sesame oil
- 1/2 to 1 inch of ginger, finely ground
- 2 bundle of green onions, chopped
- 1.5 lb of ground pork
- 2 tbsp of salt
- 1 egg
- 2 bag of dumpling wrapper, about 100 wrappers
- 1 pinch of hondashi (optional)
- 1 pinch of white pepper
- 1 cup of water with 2 tbsp of flour (the flour gives the dumpling an extra crispy skin)
Sauce Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp of soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of chili oil
- 1 tbsp of minced garlic
- 1 pinch of cilantro
Directions:
First, dice the cabbage. The reason we don’t use a food processor like many other recipes is to preserve the 「crunchiness」 of cabbage in the dumplings. If you are like me and like it really crunchy. you can chop it very coarse. If you don’t like your potstickers to be crunchy, you can chop it very fine or even go with food processor.
Now you add the salt to the diced cabbage. In addition to flavoring, another important reason is to take out more water from the vegetable. Vegetables release water after they are cooked. It will make the dumplings too wet and fall apart. By squeezing out water by salting, you can have solid, tasty dumpling meat inside!
After adding the salt and mixing well. You can now let it sit there and let salt works it magic! The water will slowly come out. After about 15 min, hand-squeeze out excess water or use a cheesecloth like me.
Next mince ginger and green onions and add to the mixing bowl. Add your processed cabbage and ground pork, add 1 egg, sesame oil and soy sauce, mix it well.
Let’s now make the dumplings!
Put some water on the edge of the dumpling skin. pinch together in the middle, only fold the upper half of the dumpling wrapper and make 3 folds toward the center on each side, that way you will have the perfect ancient Chinese gold ingot shape! The water will make the dumpling wrapper (which is actually a flatten raw flour dough) sticky again so they will stick when you press them together. Some people do use beaten egg in replacement of water, that’s up to you! If that is too much of a challenge, you can use some kind of dumpling makers. I’m gonna try it next time.
Put some flour on the surface so the dumplings do not stick to the surface. Continue until all dumplings are made.
Cooking time!
Here is something really up to you. Some people like all the dumplings to be connected. They line it up so it will stick to each other, and this is the traditional way to serve the pot stickers. However, I like it kinda loose so that the skin doesn’t stick to each other and break. Make sure to use non-stick pan.
Heat up the pan and add oil until hot then line up your dumplings. After you hear a little bit of sizzling sound, you can add the water with flour to the pot – it should come up to about ⅔ of the dumpling. Cover with lid and wait for the water to dry out at medium high heat. About 7 minutes later, the water should have evaporated and the dumplings should sizzle to build the final crust. Then you are ready to serve!
- 1 cabbage (about 2.5 lbs)
- 3 tbls of soy sauce
- 1 tbls of sesame oil
- ½ to 1 inch of finely ground ginger
- 2 bundles of chopped green onions
- 1.5 lb of ground pork
- 2 tbsp of salt
- 1 egg
- 2 bag of dumpling wrapper, about 100 wrappers
- 1 pinch of hondashi (optional)
- 1 pinch of white pepper
- 1 cup of water with 2 tbsp of flour
- 2 tbsp of soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of chili oil
- 1 tbsp of minced garlic
- 1 pinch of cilantro
- finely chop cabbage, add salt and mix well
- after 15 min squeeze out excess water from the cabbage using a cheesecloth (or your hands)
- along with the processed cabbage, mix ground pork, ground ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, chopped green onion, egg, hondashi, white pepper all together to make the dumpling filling
- pleat the dumplings with filling and place on a lightly floured surface
- repeat until all dumplings are made
- put 2 tbsp of oil in frying pan on medium heat
- place dumplings into the pan until bottom develops a golden crust
- pour in the water with flour mixture (to cover at least half of the dumplings)
- cover and continue to cook for about 7 min to steam the dumplings
- remove the lid and allow water to evaporate
- serve cooked potstickers and enjoy!